#We were here together review plus

We’ll see an explosion of new services in what’s already been dubbed the “ shut-in economy.” One can also wax hopeful about the way some habits might change-less carbon-burning travel, more local supply chains, more walking and biking.īut the disruption to many, many businesses and livelihoods will be impossible to manage. There’ll be some adaptation, of course: gyms could start selling home equipment and online training sessions, for example. That’s to say nothing of the stresses on parents thrust into home-schooling their kids, people trying to care for elderly relatives without exposing them to the virus, people trapped in abusive relationships, and anyone without a financial cushion to deal with swings in income. In the short term, this will be hugely damaging to businesses that rely on people coming together in large numbers: restaurants, cafes, bars, nightclubs, gyms, hotels, theaters, cinemas, art galleries, shopping malls, craft fairs, museums, musicians and other performers, sporting venues (and sports teams), conference venues (and conference producers), cruise lines, airlines, public transportation, private schools, day-care centers. (That’s the lowest, blue curve in the graph below the flat red line is the current number of ICU beds.) Even if you set factories to churn out beds and ventilators and all the other facilities and supplies, you’d still need far more nurses and doctors to take care of everyone.

#We were here together review plus

Without social distancing of the whole population, they found, even the best mitigation strategy-which means isolation or quarantine of the sick, the old, and those who have been exposed, plus school closures-would still lead to a surge of critically ill people eight times bigger than the US or UK system can cope with. Well, in the researchers’ model, that didn’t solve the problem. Why not just build more ICUs and treat more people at once, for example? They note that the results are “qualitatively similar for the US.”Įighteen months!? Surely there must be other solutions. Under this model, the researchers conclude, social distancing and school closures would need to be in force some two-thirds of the time-roughly two months on and one month off-until a vaccine is available, which will take at least 18 months (if it works at all). It means everyone does everything they can to minimize social contact, and overall, the number of contacts falls by 75%. What counts as “social distancing”? The researchers define it as “All households reduce contact outside household, school or workplace by 75%.” That doesn’t mean you get to go out with your friends once a week instead of four times.